In recent years, it has become increasingly popular for bakeries to furnish particularly circular rolls known as hamburg rolls and elongated finger-like rolls known as hot dog or frankfurter rolls in pre-sliced condition in which the rolls have a small unsliced portion along one side which constitutes a hinge-like connection between the upper and lower sections of the pre-sliced rolls. Due to the different thicknesses and diameters or widths of these various rolls which are usually sold in clusters in which a predetermined number of said rolls are detachably connected together at certain side edges thereof, it is necessary that the knives on roll slicing machines must be adjusted relative to the positions thereof in the machines with respect to each other. At present, it is conventional to employ circular disc knives which are relatively thin and have very sharp perpheries, said perpheries frequently being serrated to enhance the cutting action of the knives, particularly incident to slicing freshly baked rolls which are in quite soft condition.
One type of roll slicing machine of the type to which the present invention pertains, which also illustrates the nature of the machines referred to above, comprises U.S. Pat. No. 3,911,769, issued Oct. 14, 1975, to the applicant of the present invention. In said patent, it will be seen that a plurality of knives of the type referred to are supported in bearing blocks which receive the shafts of the knives and pulleys are connected to the shafts for purposes of permitting an endless belt which extends around the plurality of such pulleys to drive the disc knives on the shafts in desired rotary direction incident to slicing rolls fed to said knives along fixed paths upon an endless conveyor. Positioning belts also are employed which move longitudinally of the direction of movement of the rows of roll clusters and engage the upper surfaces thereof respectively on opposite sides of the shafts of the slicing knives to hold the rolls positioned upon the feed conveyor while the same are being sliced by the knives.
It can be visualized from said machine, for example, in adapting the machine to slice respectively either circular hamburg type rolls or elongated frankfurter rolls, the spacings between the shafts of the knives must be varied. Similarly, some bakeries produce rolls which are thicker than those produced by other bakeries and in order to slice said rolls at the desired vertical location intermediately between the top and bottom surfaces of the rolls, it is necessary that the machine must be provided with means to adjust the knives vertically with respect to the feed belt and this is accomplished usually by mounting said shafts within tubular drive sleeves upon which the drive pulleys are fixed and set screws are threaded through the walls of the drive sleeves for receiving the set screws which engage the shafts of the knives which are mounted within said sleeves. Vertical adjustment of the shafts within said sleeves is accomplished usually by raising the cutting head from the feed conveyor so as to readily expose the circular knives for access either for removal and replacement of the knives such as when the same became dull or to adjust the vertical position thereof relative to the feed belt. Normally, it is not often that the vertical position of the knives needs to be adjusted but when any of the knives are removed and are replaced by resharpened knives for example, it is necessary that the knife be mounted within the drive sleeve at the required vertical position relative to the feed conveyor.
Various types of transverse adjustments of the knife shaft also are provided as illustrated and described in said aforementioned patent but such transverse adjustment does not comprise part of the present invention, which mainly is concerned with means to quickly remove and replace the disc knives and the shafts thereof with respect to the drive sleeves that support the same in the machine.